UCSD #1 May 13, 2025 School Board Meeting

001just relax. So whatever that means they added [Music] you face Sure. Certain fire. Oh. I can never get these batteries out. I tall enough. I guess The one up there I think has two bars. Put them in backwards. Such a laser. I think I put the battery in backwards. Come on. Is that a good one? [Music] How are you? Good. How are you? [Music] Sure. Everything's working for you. You think with two bars we're okay with this one? Yeah. If not, I I'll go grab an extra battery so I have you know when I asked for a laptop this is what I got. So I was like that's big. Thanks. Did you bring me a cart with it? Can I take the card? Okay. Is there um so this is since it's on this computer

002it's actually 5% over three. Okay. [Music] Is there any way for me to sign into my email account? Yeah. Hello. Yeah. Sharing. Who else here? All nine. You're first. Let's just leave it soon as that we get through that very first part and then just Ryan will just invite Greg. So we'll do this all together and then Ryan will just introduce you and have you come back. Yeah. Yeah. And then when you're done, you're welcome to stay as long as you want or you can leave as soon as you're done. There you go. You're okay. No disrespect. No. Can you tell you're done? You can go if you want or stay. It doesn't matter. So Janet is something that I haven't learned to do since I can recall. We have two lights out of high

003school and called the fire department today. I think we're going to need to fire. Is it like once we do it like I don't know what kind of bulbs or do you have you know like for the balls we got that dial extra we have extra whatever the cape pieces are yeah all of that and then C kind of noise the show and the fire department. So, we can get all ready and then we'll get back to there are two lights out of the light. I was just going to say [Music] out of Salt Lake or I have a sticky You know, if you want something smaller, this will be great. Well, I just ask question. Let me see. I'll do some search. Yeah. Okay. Oh, you're ready. Yeah. Ready for what? Right. You know,

004yeah, I know your response. I thought I was dressed. I'm surprised you didn't text me to be honest. I a lot of other people did. I might let me just tell you. Um no, I was very nice. Oh yeah. Yeah. All over the My mind's just kind of everywhere when that's going on, you know, kind of 20 years. Really? We went from the big banquet. I don't know if we were ever around when that when we first started. I wish we never had ASA. Yeah. When we first started doing it, um, we did a place called set up in the gymnasium and, um, they food service and serve salad, meal, dessert, I don't know, food service ladies, you know, did all of it. was a big sh and then probably maybe four years ago or

005so we kind of transitioned away from that and freshman seemed to be okay with that and weren't quite so stressful was super stressful for so long you kind of move through there recognized. It's about an hour hour and a half shorter than what it used to be. Just serve everybody and kind of get the dinner over before we started the part of it. Took a little longer. I like the red. [Music] We try to rotate the colors just so the kids have a different color everywhere, you know, that go all the way up. Then the seniors get a bigger one. like you know the the first three years it's the same size just a different color and then the seniors are actually 8 by 10 and I like a little um sitting um raised little

006on it. So that's kind of how are you doing? Good. Last last too long. Last one. Yeah. Oh, going to miss you. I got to sucker someone else into it. Yeah. So, are you all ready for graduation? And yeah, I'm pretty excited. Good. Good. So, do you have a big part to play in that? Do you have to do anything special? I don't know yet. I have a hunch I might be speaking. Oh, but I don't know yet. Oh, well they might be nice to know so you can kind of prepare, right? That's good. Good for you. Thank you. And you got all your plans for college and you got all that lined out, ready to go. Just waiting. That's awesome. Where are you going? Utah State be a pilot. lady upstairs that does human

007resources. Her son went through the pilot program there. Yeah, a lot of people seem to like it. So, it's a good school. My daughter and son-in-law graduated from there. So, it's a good school. I like Logan a lot. Both my sisters live there. So, I'm already down there. Exactly. Tell them you want free rent, right? Yeah. Good for you. [Music] Straight one. [Music] Please. Thank you. [Music] The 400 [Music] Do you think we should turn the lights on? [Music] Yeah. [Music] Okay. Okay. Sure. [Music] All right, [Music] sorry. cuz I know there's a book. [Music] Yes. [Music] I just wonderful [Music] Next week, [Music] something like that. Thanks. That's okay. I left work and I went Perfect. [Music] Whatever you feel like you need to do. I mean, you don't have to be here for

008some of this discussion. Okay. Just wait when you have to leave then just get you excused. So [Music] yeah, he had a cyst on his spine. [Music] All right, it is 6:04. I need to call to order uh the Uni County School District uh number one board of trustees school board meeting. I need a motion to go into said meeting. So moved. Second that. I have a motion. I have a second. Any discussion? None. All in favor say I. I. eyes. Any opposed? Eyes have it. And we are in uh our board meeting. Will we please rise and uh follow me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice

009for all. Thank you. All righty. Um, I need a motion to approve tonight's agenda. Mr. Chairman, I move that we approve tonight's agenda. Second. We need to amend the agenda. You want to amend it? Yes, we need to amend that we amend the agenda. Then what do you disciplinary action? No, I discussed chairman Peterson, members of the board, we request that you add a disciplinary action, student disciplinary action to the action items. Okay. So, I need a motion to add that C in our action items for the disciplinary actions for the student that was discussed in our executive session. So, move, Mr. Chairman, to add that. I have a motion. I have a second. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Eyes have it. Motion carries. All righty. I need a motion

010to approve the consent agenda items. A the minutes from the board meeting of 48 2025 and the payment of bills. So moved. Second. I have a motion. I have a second. Any discussions? All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Eyes have it. Motion carries. Okay, we will now move on to our presentations. Thank you, Chairman Peterson. We do have Kim from the rec center. But before Kim Kim comes up, I would like to recognize um our student representative, Colby Nelson. It has got to be the funnest assignment he ever had. So, thank you. Thank you, Kim. Come on up. Sit here next to my computer. I'm the only one that has no board chairman. Um Kim Larson from Evston Parks and Recreation District. and thanks for the opportunity and taking the time to um

011listen. I'm here to kind of give you an update on where we're at with our aquatic center initiative. Um I know you have a busy night, so uh we'll go through a you know brief slideshow and then you can ask any questions. Then following that um perhaps have a quick discussion on our operating agreement for the following fiscal year. So um I came and visited quite a while ago about our um aquatic center idea and I just want to kind of give you where we're at. Um so we had a feasibility study performed by Burbach Aquatic and Albertson's Engineering. Um, we have a 99page report saying that our pool is at the end of its useful life. Yes, we knew that. Um, renovating the old pool. We looked at um doesn't really fit the needs

012of our community. It is outdated. The area is very small. Um, when we have big events, we have to split them up into two different days. For instance, our Easter egg hunt at the pool, you have to do a Friday and Saturday, otherwise we're over capacity. Um, we can get over capacity very easily there. Um, so we truly believe that building a new aquatics facility is in the best option. Um, estimated uh construction cost for a new facility would be 25,922. Estimated cost for converting our old pool to more gym space would be 2 almost 2.9 million. Um so this would help us with two problems. One our old pool and two our lack of gym space for all these kids and where they can go cuz we could actually take gymnastics from upstairs, move

013it down to the old pool and that would open up a third gym for us which would be fantastic. Uh, one of the biggest things is it's basically pool or no pool. Um, we're we're pretty desperate and I'll show you some pictures here um showing uh why. Uh, this is a list of everything that is wrong with our old pool. It's uh the pool room's out of level. It's difficult to maintain. Our equipment room is congested. What happens when you put the electrical, with the chemicals, with the pumps, everything becomes corroded. They don't do that anymore when they construct pools. The HVAC air management um is poor. We get what's called chloromine laden air down that is gets trapped um um by the water. Um, and it's just in bad shape. So, here here's just

014a example of how the pool lies every day. You see one side is completely dry, the other side is wet, and we have pooling water, which is actually a health violation. Um, the Wyoming Health Department, um, I know them very well because they have, um, threatened to shut down our pool because of standing water on our deck. And so in order in order to remedy that, we had to buy an expensive machine to clean and suck up the water, which uh we needed an a full extra custodian to do every single night. Um there's a lot of corrosion and badness under the pool. You can see in this picture how everything is just shoved in one room. You have um like I say all the pumps, the electrical, the piping all in the same rooms

015with the chemicals and everything becomes corroded over time. This is under the pool. Um you know, just it's over 40 years old. Go back to that. That's just it could be a haunted house. Um kind of is. Yeah. So what we are proposing is to put a new aquatic center right next door. If you look in my cursor, this is the existing rec center. Here are the parking lots. We would put it right next door. This is city um property that is um can easily it was once rec zone for recreation. Um they did it's now like low density um residential but they can easily move it back to uh recreational. Um we've proposed having a competition lap pool and a recreational pool. And um one of the main reasons for this is not because

016we have we do have so many visitors but um this competition lap pool is a chilly oh shoot I want to say 78° where this wreck pool is a nice 94°. So, you hate to put your water aerobics people into a very cold pool. They hate that. And then your lap swimmers, competition swimmers hate to swim in a very hot pool. Um, another reasoning for this is we could have a competition over here and it would not stop any programming that's going on over in the uh recreational pool. Um, go through some of these. Here's a bigger picture. We've also included um one of the problems we have at the rec center is we are always booked with our uh party rooms for birthday parties, events, meetings. Um to have more space, we have created

017three party rooms or rentable rooms. Um two on the bottom which they have openings to either pool. So you could also use it as like a coaches or officials room. Um staff area up front or lobby. We have ADA family changing rooms. Um and men's and women's changing rooms. Um and then the upstairs would be an observation deck, a third party room, concessions, additional um bathrooms. You could rent this party room out by itself or you could actually rent this whole space. We our so for instance our bear building community center is booked every weekend through September. So you I could actually see this as income potential is you could rent this whole space out for a family reunion or an event. Um and I think it would would rent very easily and be hooked

018up. So here are just some 3D renderings what that could look like. Here are some concepts of like so the pool would have a zero depth entry on the recreation side. So I mean we're talking from babies to elderly with joint problems who can easily get into that pool because it will be um they'll have the handrails and um those with um disabilities or joint problems will not have to go into a ladder to get into it. It would have a lazy river. Uh lazy river is not only fun for recreation, but it's a great exercise for those like say you just get a knee replacement. You go or you're it for me it would be just it's great walking against the current. It's awesome exercise. Uh then the other side would be a competition

019eight lane 25 yard uh pool lot pool. Um, so I think I kind of went over all the um amenities that it would have. It would also have like a water walk, a water slide for the kids. Um, it would have a large spa. Um, and [Music] then for the old pool, we would fill that. And one thing with gymnastics we could do is you could use the deep end, convert it into a like a foam pit for the gymnastics crash pad. Um, and like I said, we could um move the gymnastics equipment down there and open up that third gym very easily for all of our programming. You could also do a blank slate. This would be a cheaper option, just a blank multi-purpose room, which would be used quite a bit as well.

020Here is just a picture of what the gymnastics, you know, could look like. and um some drawings of the gymnastics area. And we thought about a gym, but with the way the um ceiling slopes, you could really only have a half court in there. So, it seems to make more sense to move gymnastics down there and open up that full court. So, uh big cost. Everything costs a lot of money. um we would be looking at approximately 28.8 million and that would be both a conversion and the new um pool. Um and then of course you're asking how on earth are we going to pay for this? Um, we are pushing for a special election this November where we would do a temporary specific purpose tax. This is a sales tax or you may know

021it as a penny tax. Um, so it's not on your food, not on your groceries, not on your gasoline, not on your property. It is on the extra that you buy. And one thing I do emphasize is it's temporary because once the projects are done, this does go away. In order for it to continue, you would have to have another election. Um, and then two, you must think that all the out of town people who come here on their way to um, Yellowstone, Jackson, Flaming Gorge, Uentas, Bear Lake, all those people who stop here and buy things are helping to pay for the school as well. Now, the tax is a countywide tax. So, I've been working with the other municipalities to come up with their projects. I think we're um I thought we had

022it nailed down on Monday. We may have had a glitch, but anyway, I have all of the projects until Loretta, who's working on drafting up some resolutions right now for municipalities um to pass um to uh put on the ballot and the county commissioners. um donors. We will continue to go for donors. You know, everything here, our our rec center full, it was oil money. We don't have that anymore. So, now we have to be more creative. Um uh we received a donation from the McKinley family um two weeks ago. It's a pledge. It's a pledge that's contingent upon the passing of the penny tax. um $250,000 a year for 3 years. They will match any other grant up to 200 or grant uh donation up to $250,000. So, we can use it to help

023solicit other donations as well. Um fundraising. Um I'm not sure if you've we have developed or created um it's called the recreation Evston recreation foundation. This is a nonprofit 501c3 um tax exempt that will help us with soliciting donations and fundraising. Uh it has a separate board of directors and um our one we've had several successful small uh fundraising events which are more informational events as well. Our big uh fundraising event this summer is our gala. Please come and support us at our gala. You can get a table um for 600. Although this week I'm giving a special, a director special for 550 for a table or $75 a ticket. And we'll have dancing um dinner um auction and it should be a fun night. It's uh June 14th. And then grants. Of course, we

024will seek every type of grant we can. I have not ran across a grant that will pay for an aquatic center, but there are a lot of grants we can get. So, for instance, we just got a grant last summer and this summer for free swimming lessons. So, if you have grandkids or kids that need swimming lessons, guess what? They're free right now at the rec center. Uh there's grants out there for safety equipment and ADA equipment and um through USA swimming for timing equipment, things like that. So if you come across a grant that pays for a whole aquatic center, let me know. So plan moving forward, uh we'll continue to work with Burbach Aquatics and um Albertson's Engineering. Uh they do help us with the fundraising efforts and referendum support. Um, the Evston

025Recreation Foundation, we meet the fourth Wednesday of each month at 5:30 if anybody's interested. Um, I already told you about our next fundraising event, the gala, uh, temporary specific purpose tax on the ballot November 4th. Here are the other projects. Lyman is doing the Bridger Valley Youth Club. Mountain View is doing ADA restroom for the town park, plus other uh improvements such as irrigation and electricity. Bear River is doing a secondary access road for Upper Deer Mountain. UA County Fire and Ambulance um is asking for two fire trucks, two ambulances. Um you'll continue to see us out in the community giving educational um presentations. We're going to continue to pursue do donors and continue to look for grants. So there we are. That's what we're up to. Can you tell us what those sister communities

026demands amount to in dollars? Yes. So um let's go. So we're essentially 30 million for for what we get. So yeah. Yeah. 30 30 million for us. Bridger Valley Youth Club is 7.8 million. Uh ADA restrooms and improvements to Mountain View Town Park is 2.2 million. Bear River Secondary Access Road is um close to n it's like 800,000 900,000. Uh, UA County Fire and Ambulance is 3.3 million for a grand total of 43 million. Yeah. Um, sales tax will bring in, you know, it sales tax is up and down. Um, approximately 3.8 million a year. So about 7 and 1/2 years to pay off all these projects. Despite our intensive efforts to meet our budget, can you remind us how far we went over budget on the domes? Yeah, sorry. In a percentage. I don't

027need a dollar value, but I know that we went over and it was notable. Huh. 10%. About 10%. So, it did that. Okay. So if we add that onto this project which is almost a guarantee because that's where projects go. These projects have have um contingencies built into them. So did ours 10% above the bid those were based on October last year bid dollars. And so by the time you get started, you know, jack it up 20%. So by the time you do all of that, we're looking at a 10-year tax. Yeah. Is by my best estimates. Yeah. Well, if you get 4 million a year out of it, right, that's to get to 40 million or 50 million, then we're longer than that. So, that's Well, she was saying 7 and a half years

028at 45 million, 43 million and by the time you add the contingencies in, we're at essentially 10 years, you know, worth of tax. And the significance of that is and and I'm just making sure that we've got everything up above board because it sounds real easy when we say we're going to add a 1% tax or one penny tax. Mhm. until you go buy a truck. Now, instead of $3,500 in taxes, you're paying $4,200 in taxes, an extra $700 per individual when you go make a major purchase. And so the the the one penny tax is significant on our locals as well as the if you're buying a this would be my argument if you're buying a $90,000 truck which you know that was based on $70,000 and the voters just shot down a increase

029in taxes last November I believe. Well I just want to make sure that we don't that we don't focus on the one penny and forget what that means. So that's it. That's what the communities, the other communities, that's the thing is it's going to be countywide and we're we're pulling 30 million of the 40 million over to Evston. How much support are you going to get out of lineman and Mountain View? So when we started getting together, we kind of agreed upon population uh based on population. So we started out with Evston, you know, which has 75% of the population and that's and from there that's where we came up with numbers. So actually to be honest um with Lyman and Mountain Views projects um they're over what their population is based on like if

030you were to devote population. So and then the other thing was is do you have an alternate plan at all? And the reason I'm going down this road is cuz obviously you are aware we want to get a fieldhouse. Mhm. And there was a lot of opposition from throughout the district, right? And I think the reason that a lot of people were nervous about it was the dollar figure. And the reason the dollar figure went to where it was at is cuz everybody had their own little wish list. Yeah. And as I'm looking at this facility, is there a lot of wish lists inside that facility that's driving up this cost where it could have been less and more of a chance for it to pass? And that's all I'm telling you right now is

031when people start looking at we're going to try to raise money at $45 to $50 million in a county. Um maybe and that doesn't include maintenance costs after the return on the investment. Yeah. 50 years. No, the last pool lasted last 40 years. You know what we've got there. But so and that's that's just my comments, right? I mean, I just know that as we went down this process not too many years ago. Yeah. I know there was a lot of push back from other agencies. Yeah. Other agencies that push back against our wanting to build a fieldhouse. And so, um, just just worry or not worry about, but think a little bit about creep, right? And as you were looking at this and as you were presenting it, I think there's a lot of

032things in there that maybe are the fluff and the little little frilly things that might not necessarily be needed as you go after money. So, and that's a good point. Um, this concept that I showed you tonight was our ninth try. Um, and there And when I say that, it's because, you know, I also don't want to put so much money into something that we're going to regret. Why didn't we do this? Um, for instance, making it one pool, making the you could put like the competition lanes with the recreation portion. However, you would have to shut down one side, you know, or the other and you would have to adjust the temperature and then you know what happens when perhaps Davis pulled those out and there's we could have had a chance to have

033this. I'm thinking about future generations like are we going to be like dang we wish we would have done it this way if we were going to do it. We said the same thing. Yeah. Yeah. We said the exact same thing and I voted for the field house just so but I I I guess that's what I'm going down the road, right? Because I know I know Laram dropped $18 million almost $20 million on their pool and there isn't it is a strictly competition pool. Mhm. How much did Green River put on their pool? Strictly competition. 22 million. Mhm. So I and and I guess the figures I'm just kind of looking at this, you know, and you're looking at two different pools and the maintenance of two different pools and like I said, so

034as you go forward with it, maybe there should be maybe a little bit of an alternate to this and and maybe that dollar amount isn't so scary to think about. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, we have eight other concepts that we've discussed. So, yep. Sometimes it's nice to aim high, but sometimes we miss. Yeah. Point. I didn't mean to be antagonistic. I just wanted to Oh, no. You know, make sure that we're seeing. No, I love No, the questions are great because this is what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to go talk to people face to face, hear their concerns, and get the feedback. Um, and what percentage of the population uses the facility that we have currently right now? 20%. Maybe of for the pool for that whole recreation, the whole rec

035center. You got I don't know. You got 12,000 people live in this town. 15,000. How? 12,000. I mean, how Yeah. I mean, how how many people I I mean, if you That's That's a hard one. I mean, right to answer cuz if you included everything the parks and wreck entails. I mean, we have the golf course, we have the cemetery. Everyone uses that at some point. I'm just asking about the rec center. I my Oh, the rec center. I think it's low. She might. So we have just uh around during the week, Monday through Friday, 300 to 400 community members walk through the door and that's not including spectators that go watch their kids play or the programming itself. Those are people that swipe in to use the rec center is about 3 to 400

036a day. And I guess that was my point as I was trying to say the two pools, right? You're saying the competition pool, the competition pool for like little league swimming, is that what it would be used for? USA swimming is actually very huge in other states and in this state. Um the reason we can't grow is because we don't have a pool for those kids. We don't use Davis. Um we one day a week because they have to pay for it and we don't want to increase the costs anymore than we have to. And um but like our wreck pool isn't really sufficient like they can't practice their dives and starting block and this and that. So we used to um go to Davis four times a week. [Music] Okay. are I mean that

037program could really grow just like we can't we could have a meet but it's also difficult because you have the USA standards and then the school district also um we have to get have your employees run the timing equipment and your software needs to mesh with their software and it was a little we tried it once it was a little hard um and then we have to pay for all you know [Music] um you know a day Mhm. or two. Usually USA swim meets are two days, three days. So, I think the design's very well thought out in terms of giving something for everybody, right? We're thinking about our seniors and and water aerobics classes, which is the most popular at the rec center. We're thinking about our kids. Thinking about having a place to

038teach swimming lessons. All of these things coming together in the one space will be immensely valuable. And like you said at the beginning, it's really a question of pool or no pool for as a community. Um that is a space that is open to everybody all the time. Well, I agree. Ken's done an awesome job of putting an incredible facility. There's no question about that. Yeah. Um, yeah, it really does touch babies to 100y old plus. Um, and I would say like if you don't swim, that's why I try to emphasize there's also community like you could rent out that space. um you know it it it would be a great uh you know for conference family reunion and that such cuz we are in need for those community um spaces. How many employees would

039it take to manage and maintain that new facility? We would need um another front desk receptionist. Okay. We already have an we already pay for and have a full-time aquatic supervisor. We have a staff of 20 lifeguards right now and uh WSI we already um employ those people custodian. So we would just move them over. And just to let you know this old pool, this last fiscal year, we put about $30,000 in repair in it. We're just banding just band-aiding it. And I hate to do every time I But we'll keep it going as long as we need to until we figure something out. So, okay. Okay. Those are all good questions. And any other questions? Anybody? No. Great, Kev. Thanks. Move on to the rec agreement. Oh, yeah. on to the direct agreement. Okay.

040So, from last year, I I just changed the dates. I feel like things went okay. I don't know how you guys felt. Um I I would be fine just going with the same agreement that we kind of hashed out last year. Um unless anyone else says otherwise. Chairman Peterson, members of the board, we do um like the changes that were made last year. We uh like to see them continue. Recenter has been a good partner as always and um I know there were cons some concerns about the Aspen field and they probably still exist by members of our board and uh um that's probably the only issue that I think we saw and have and I think that's been taken care of hopefully. Yeah. I think there was a little bit of a misunderstanding, right?

041Yeah. because of the mill, you know, and we agreed for them to receive the entire mill again, but I think some of the people on the board kind of understood that the money that was given to the recck department on the mill end was going to offset the cost and those costs were not going to be passed on to the individual kids and groups. So when all of a sudden we were getting these hate mails and phone calls of what we were doing to them that I think there was a little misunderstanding of where that money was supposed to be coming from and how the they were going to pay for the use of our facilities. So we did for the traveling teams that aren't our programs that we don't get any revenue from. We

042increased $5 per kid. Okay. Five bucks. And you know it don't matter how much it is if there's an increase they're going to Yeah. We caught the blame on that though. We caught the I mean we got the hate and it never we never for any like I hope nobody thinks we are profiting from these groups at all because we sure aren't. We're just helping offset the costs of what it takes to maintain and coordinate and you know hire you know have all our lifeguards with every single school group that comes through and you know there's and it you know wear and tear. We've had we've had hundreds of school kids in our rec center which we love. We love it. We don't want it to stop. So, so the rec agreement is up for

043approval next month. Yes. So, that's typically how we do it. And Kim, unless you want her back next month, probably wouldn't have to come, but we'd definitely have a portion discussion item on the agenda to discuss the rec center bill if or rec center agreement if you have it. So, anybody have any questions on it at all? Okay. And if if you something comes up and you would need me back, I am happy to. I'll be in touch. Okay. Well, thank you guys for your time. Really appreciate. Good job. We'll let Kim go home and start sticking pins in her Brian doll. She already did that. She already started. All right, we can move on to our next privilege presentation. Ryan. Uh, Chairman Peterson, members of the board, we did get a request from Gerald

044Smith to attend tonight to provide a donation to our music program. So, Gerald and friends, come on down. Introduce yourself, please, and go from there. Hi, everybody. My name is Ron Lord and came here thinking we're doing something good, but y'all are talking about millions of dollars. I'm Trevor. I'm the founder of the Veteran Boys Crew. It's from basically this all sum and go group to go ride around with every year and uh we go to a fundraiser this year uh in regards to our business being recognized locally and kind of doing all kinds of things. But anyways, we had a bunch of raffles and whatnot and we ended up coming up with some groceries we wanted to donate to the high school music program or the school program period. Why not? Anyways, yeah. So,

045um we managed to come up with this. Uh we could have a lot more, but we unfortunately my brother passed away this year in an avalanche and we have to take some of it, put towards his burial and stuff. So, uh this is going to be kind of a yearly thing we'd like to do. So every year what me and mom discussed a little ticket program just kind of donate a little bit of what we raise every year through this to help the kids and the music program's good for their academic future. And so I'm going to stop you just for a second. I need each one of you to step to the mic and introduce yourselves because this is fantastic. It really is. And then I'd like for you to explain a little bit

046what the the Venture Boys are. And there you go. That's the nice part. Yeah, I know. So, so please introduce yourself and and what this is. I think this is fantastic what you guys are doing. So, I'd like to recogn Okay. And uh once again, I'm Trevor Harmon. I guess I'll be the curator for the demonstration here. But anyways, uh I have a company called High Adventures South of Town about 30 miles here. And this year, uh my riding crew, the guys is part of us anyway. Some of us couldn't make it, but uh we basically just tear the mountains up on snowmobiles and have a great time to quite all your boys is a is a snowmobile club. Okay. We're kind of like to the region of the North Slope and whatnot. So um

047we had a fundraiser this year and to raise funds for a high school and uh yeah. So we So what we did is we had 5050 raffles and we took all the proceeds from the 50/50 raffles and we donating it towards the towards the music program for the high school. It's not a lot of money, but anything helps. It is a lot of money. It's more the message than the money. So, we wanted to, you know, just try and do something good for the community because the community is good to us. We we love this town and I was a school kid through 12, right? And Trevor actually teacher, too. Looks [Music] like his head sticking up like he was. John, do you have something to say? I guess one of the questions I have

048is do you is how would you like it to go into the um music program? Would you like it to go into a student activity um music program fund with their trips to the to the or do you want it to go into the general fund to be used like to go it to go into the like the classroom? applying instruments, whatever. Yeah. So, what I my thought would be is to put it um in Bubba's has he has a music account, but I didn't know if it also needed to go to Davis and the EMS as well. So, but I think you said high school. That's how we advertise it was for the advers. But I I guess it pretty much would be at your guys's discretion. As long as it goes to I

049would be we want to honor because we have really three music programs. We've got coral, we've got strings, and we've got um band. And so is it divided into thirds or whatever. So okay, that I guess that's however at your discretion that would be great. is glad that it's going to help us get Thank you. Thank you. So Trevor, he said to himself, do this event every year, guys. So if you guys Oh, go ahead. Sorry. Since you're kind of the mouthpiece, is this organization does it require membership? Are you looking for additional members? No, I mean we just like we just get together. We enjoy the winter outdoors, you know. So, if somebody wanted to go riding with you, how would they do that? Give me a phone call. Come up right across the

050street. Be there on Saturday at 10:00. Every weekend we go out and we take all kinds of pictures. We take Minnesota out whatot. We're probably going to pull a license and get the whole guiding thing going eventually. But for now, it's just a fun thing to do, you know, and we had a little It's a good way to meet people and people. And it's a sport that's underrecognized in my opinion. Like like we live in the mountains or snow where it actually is a really great time. Like I've kept these two alive. So sometimes we get in the places we should go places. I'm old, you know, it's hard to work these young guys. It's Okay. Right. Anyways, yeah, brought this check to kind of present you guys and I've got the actual funds in

051the bank. Okay. So, give them to don't give them to anybody up here because they will not get to where it needs to be cuz we get paid so much for this. So, I'm going to ask you a real quick question. So, can I ask a quick question on this? You know, and I know you want to go towards the the the uh the music department, right? But what I was wondering is specifically the band, can we go down the rout route of a scholarship through the Venture Boys? Would you rather give a scholarship to somebody going on through the Merrick industry on the music side? Be cool, actually. Really, cuz I mean that's their step into their future. Yeah, that's what I'm If that's the route you want to go, right? So we can

052have in Yeah. So she's in the strings. What does she play? Oh, she she's a violinist. Oh, nice. Yeah. So cool. That was one of my reasons for why wasn't it got it in number? You guys welcome to come up too or hold a check out here. David, you got to really be in some sort of shape. Thanks for letting us come. We'll see you guys later. Thank you everybody. Appreciate just lean that giant check right there. Just put it right there. That giant right there. Thank you. Thank you guys. Thank you guys. Have a good night. You bet. [Music] That was absolutely awesome. So, I guess we can decide from there. Maybe scholarship might, you know. I don't know. Or three scholarships. One for strings, one for band, and one for, you know, 330

053bucks or whatever. So, whatever. Yep. So, check. We'll work on it. We'll see what the high school needs. Yeah. See what they need. Yep. Fantastic. All right. That's our last presentation for the night. We need second. Well, it's the second, but it's the last. Okay. Anyway, we will now move on to operational budget presentations. Curriculum K5. This mic is on. The other mic is not on. That's true. All right. Uh, Mr. Chairman, members of the board, thank you for the opportunity to, uh, talk a little bit about what we do in curriculum, instruction, assessment, and HR. So, as Dr. Engles gets this set up, um, we uh, we're excited to be here. Um, so we'll go to the next one, doc. Um, so some of you were able to go to the high reliability schools

054conference uh in January and I just want to make that quick connection back to the things that we do. We tie back to that and so the high reliability schools model is is really our overarching school improvement model. So um with that there is a the vast majority of that right it's it's taken care of by the staff the faculty at the schools themselves those decisions are made there we have reciprocal responsibility in that to help provide the resources that they need. So for example in level two effective instruction in every classroom that goes to our our evaluation system our growth system uh which is the focus teacher evaluation and growth model um guaranteed and viable curriculum uh reciprocal accountability there. We pay uh we provide an additional planning period uh for our teachers to

055be able to collaborate and work in their collaborative teams to be able to work on that guaranteed and viable curriculum. And then level four standardsbased reporting um that is tied is is kind of a result of really doing well in in level three and and we'll talk about other schools that are certified in each of those areas here in just a little bit. Okay. Um so that focus teacher uh growth and evaluation model there are 23 elements in that. Um there are eight required so the banks of the river so to speak. Um there are eight required elements and then teachers have two choice elements. They get to pick two things that they want to work on in their professional growth as it relates to instruction. Uh that professional development comes in lots of different

056uh shapes and forms. Uh sometimes they do that during their collaboration time. Quite honestly, some of the best professional development a teacher can get is sitting down and working with another teacher that teaches that same concept. Um they learn from each other. They share their strategies. That's a super way to um to grow uh in instruction job embedded through instructional leader. So a lot of times the schools will provide during their late start Mondays other opportunities. Um a lot of those are are teacher le in many cases um where teachers are sharing some of their instructional uh strategies and practices. Oh, that's fine. As we move, it says my name. Yeah. As we move forward through the presentation, one of the things that we're really proud of here in Uni County School District number one

057is our induction program. Becky was here earlier and she shared a lot with the board about what happens for our teachers year 1, 2, and three and then beyond. And as we go to the job fairs and we go to probably 10 job fairs throughout uh the course of that hiring season from February until the end of March, we ask those candidates to go and ask the districts one question. What do you do for your new teachers? And invariably when they come back to us, they say nothing like what you're doing. And what we provide there is three years onboarding. Initially they get things like here's the insurance here's what happens here's how you access your email all of that that's early on that first year but that's only the beginning from there then Becky

058brings those cohorts together year 1 2 and three they draw close to one another they learn what is effective instruction so they go through the 23 elements and they build that across the three years um we're very proud of the work that is done there when you look at us overall and I know she shared this with you earlier across the United States 40% within the first 5 years of teachers leave their profession entirely never to return 40% that's four and 10 line up 10 teachers four of them are gone never to return our district 4% 4% so a tenth of what's happening across the country when you look at it it's it's a lot of it has to do with what we're doing to support them with the leadership that we have we'll get

059on later. Uh the consistency in our leadership when you look at our school leaders and the work that they do, it's phenomenal. And the amount of time that they've been in our working with our teachers as well as our teachers themselves uh and building those learning cohorts, it's really a positive environment and that's what we're all looking for. When you look at K12 curriculum and accomplishments, uh the teachers annually re review and revise ELA and writing uh as well as math. They look at the essential standards. They look at proficiency skills. They look at paging guides. They look at unit plans. Those are updated on the website every single year. Uh we look at specials. The specials teams meet throughout the year. They work on curriculum as well, including the music, PA, media, computer science,

060science, and social studies. Not part of the specialist block, but social studies part of the regular general classroom. So that's almost unheard of. Usually what you do is you go through a 5-year rotation because of the PLC process and the work we do as far as guaranteed and viable curriculum. We continue to do that on a regular basis. So we're always updating. We're always reviewing. We're always looking at how we can get better on a regular basis. So it's not just a one and done every 5 years. Okay. All right. One of the things we're really proud of is our summer academy and we do it at three levels. So really, it's like opening up three schools for the summer for a 20-day time time span. The high school, you can see down below, they

061do a credit recovery, and the kids who need to recover their credits, they go until during that 20 days days until they demonstrate that they've met the requirements. Uh 6 through 8, you really look at skill gaps and and the core academic content areas. this year. Uh, starting last year, we actually moved the fifth grade into the middle school, which was a really great idea because we weren't getting as many kids in the fifth grade who were coming to the elementary side of things. They had already moved on. So, we decided, let's try that. We actually, I think, had Mr. Peters 25. Uh, I suppose about 25. So who were actually in the middle school whereas before we were looking at maybe 10 to 15 at the most. Uh we call that a transition bridge

062and so those kids then go and they it really is a transition piece for some of our most the kids who have the greatest need and that's what we do there. K4 what we're doing currently uh really trying to increase uh what we do as far as interventions on individual kids. So we have a core piece, but then as well we're building in very specific skill interventions based upon what those kids need individually as we begin to move forward. You can see over 400 students are served. Uh it's a pretty good number, not just K5, but that's 400 across K12. Okay. Uh PLC teams, you can see I'll I'll add on to that a few more of the accomplishments. They are continually developing what we call our 15-day unit plans which are aligned to the

063district unit plans. Uh they develop common formative assessments with then they use to measure student proficiency. From there they divide kids into intervention groups which really are looking at what those kids need at each individual grade level. It's it's quite a system. I could probably spend uh an hour just going through our PLC process, but please stop by anytime. I'm sure that you've got PLC teams that would love to have you come and sit through what they're doing in their PLC time and what they're doing around assessment. This for the last year we've had a handwriting study. We've really looked at why handwriting. Well, have you tried to read some of the writing that comes home at times? And so what we did was really looked at the research. We had a study group. There

064were about 40 teachers who came together from across the district. Uh Amy Barker facilitated that group. We then put together a guidance document looking at what the good research says about handwriting instruction. And then we brought in some programs. The teachers evaluated the programs themselves to see which one one was evidence-based, most researchbased that met our needs. We settled upon what we call uh the Zayer blower and uh we just had a training on Monday with all of our elementary teachers. Gave them the opportunity to get a little bit of the program itself. It is a support for CKLA, not a supplanting. So what'll happen is they'll utilize that and they use that program to actually lift up what they're doing in CLA. The nice thing is once it's taught, the expectation is that's what

065kids will do. it'll be consistent across all elementary schools, all teachers, and and that's really a positive part of that particular piece. One of the things that they pointed out in our training was there's some really good research that and the connectivity between handwriting and reading itself and the connectivity in the brain, the mapping in the brain that that happens and that's a part of that process. Again, we could I could probably talk on and I promised Jiren that I How much was it, Jiren? I remember. Uh, so then you look at our K5 district essential standards math and ELA assessment. So, we give that twice a year. We give it in November and we give it in February. We really take a look at what we're doing uh what we call our superhero standards,

066those standards that kids need the most in math and ELA across the year, and we measure it at those points. uh we review those with the teachers in each grade level team. They then make a determination of changes that need to be made to the assessment. It's not a secret assessment. Some districts give those assessments and the only time you see it is when the kids get it on their desk. The teachers were are involved and continually are involved building those assessments and then administering those to the kids. It's evidence again of our guaranteed viable curriculum as well as the impact on instruction. So, so 612 wise, um, a lot of the same stuff. One of the things that we're doing is making sure that, um, we're we're helping students understand and and see the

067content in ways that tests require them to do so, right? So, we don't have that that disconnect between what's taught in the classroom and how students are assessed, whether it's the ACT, the white, whatever that external assessment might be. So, so I our math, our ELA, uh some in science are are looking at those types of things. Um I I got to tell you, I'm super excited. I'm I'm very proud of of our teachers and and the work that they're doing in their collaborative teams. Um we talk about STAR reading and math. I just want to lift that up a little bit. I I think Trusty Archie had mentioned early on, right, talking about data, wondering about the achievement data, had some questions around that. What I can tell you is that that STAR reading

068and and math assessment, our teachers are using that. I use that I and we literally do that at the end of each quarter, right? At the end of we do at the very beginning of the year as a benchmark. Um end of the first quarter, end of the second quarter, end of the third quarter. And what's cool is, so I just did sixth grade ELA, for example, at one of our schools. Um the STAR uh prediction was 68%. our our students ended up at 64%. So, it's it's really pretty close in terms of is that a decent indicator or a predictor of how our kids are going to do. So, when you think about the validity and the reliability of that assessment, it's it's pretty high, right? So, 4 percentage points off is is not

069a significant difference. So super excited about how our teachers are using that new tool this year to really provide interventions for students based on how they're doing on those those benchmark assessments. Wield is something we really proud of from preK all the way through 12th grade. It's a comprehensive approach to literacy and as a district uh we received right at three and a half almost $3.6 $6 million over the last five years. We've done some a lot of different things with that from letters training which is the foundation of reading training, science of reading for I think we're at 95% of our elementary teachers and I know at the high school there were probably content area teachers as well as the LA teachers, middle school and high school. I think another 25 to 30 teachers

070who have taken that training just because they want to know what does it mean to to teach a student how to read and this really gives them that foundation as they begin to support kids in that in that way. We also had a lot of uh training from instructional intensity inc. There are consultants who come in. They've been consistent over the last seven years but especially we've been able to utilize them more during the last five years of this particular grant. Uh we're quite proud of the work that we have done especially with prek. What we've been able to do with prek you have to spend of the grant 15% of that on prek 40% on on elementary and then 40% on secondary and we've been a what they've done is taken the programs that

071we are utilizing. We have were able to purchase those for them, provide them the training with the programs that we use, including the intervention programs, and then they could utilize those so that those kids who go to preschool now it's relatively seamless as they move into kindergarten. It's uh it's been phenomenal. Uh the amount of money spent there is close to $500,000 over the last uh 4 and a half years. uh the grant runs out unfortunately the uh last day of September and uh it's going to be hard to see it go. We've used it for mentors. We've used it for instructional as a leadership team to really try to provide interventions in 6 through 12 with uh specific interventionists that have been well trained as well as training across the district. So it's going

072to be missed. The way that we did the grant though was to make sure that we could sustain many of those programs. The hard part is is being able to pay the mentoring side of that as well as the letter side, but we're trying to work that in and build that in with some of what we have to offer through title 2A and some other things. But we don't have a funding click. So much so that we are spending the grant down. They've told us, hey, can you guys spend this 154040 breakdown if we give you additional money? We've already accepted an additional almost $100,000. I would venture to guess before we get to it's all said and done because of how well we do around this and how well organized we are with that

073systematically we'll probably get a little bit more as some of those other schools aren't able to spend theirs. So uh why built it's been incredible um and uh I'm proud of the work that we've been able to do prek on federal programs that's another part of what Mr. Mr. Riby and I do I the consolidated grant I call it manager director whatever you want to call that as well. So we handle uh all things federal programs. We get a lot of support from John Williams and the business office and the work that they do. We're grateful for that support and uh Doug and I kind of divide up some of those federal programs and we'll talk about each one of those. Currently title one part A which is really improving academic achievement for lowincome atrisisk

074students. Does anyone have an idea how many of our students you county school district number one are free and reduced? I would say 40 to 50%. 40 to 50 40 58%. Wow. So when you look along I80 we are the highest uh in fact the only schools that I can find that are higher are the reservation schools as far as our free and reduced numbers. So the work that we do uh to meet the needs of our low-income atrisisk students I think is phenomenal and uh that hat goes off to the teachers to the principles to the the leadership that is provided around that. But that's title one part A. Title three is our ELA language acquisition program. We have uh uh you can see we get $16,000 quite a bit different than what we

075get for for our title one. Uh the problem with title three trying to be consistent with that spending. One year they may give you $10,000, the next year they might give you $25,000. So you can't be consistent with what you're spending those dollars on because it's shifting. It's a moving target. And so we try to utilize it for training. Uh Mr. Willis, I see he's in the audience here. And uh they've used it to go to uh WEDA conference every year. And how has that been? Fantastic. Other teachers all over the country. Thank you. And and they meet twice. Uh do you meet every Monday or almost every Monday? Almost every Monday. And they build this in as far as professional development, what we're doing with our our English language or ELLL plan for the

076district, upgrading that, constantly coming up with ways and means in which we can better serve our ELLL population and try to build that in. So that's title three. So two of them that I'm responsible for. Title 2A is our teacher uh instructional improvement grant. Basically those monies are set aside for teacher professional development. Big shift 9 years ago uh when we came into these positions that money basically goes to our our schools for our teachers to decide what they want to go to. And so we don't um we don't dictate what type of professional development teachers have to to partake in. Um the schools, we divide that money up. We we pull out about $100,000 into what we call the district pool. The rest of that money is distributed to the schools based on the

077school population. And so then teachers can then go to their principal as collaborative teams and say, "Hey, we'd like to go." So, for example, our science teachers at Evston High School, all of them went to the National Science Teacher Association, uh, conference in Philadelphia. Thank you. Um, uh, in March, I believe it was. Okay. So, that's something they wanted to do, right? We use Title 2A dollars to do that. If, for example, a school runs out of funds, Horizon gets like five bucks. um they can apply to um the district pool if they have teachers that want to uh go to a particular conference. Sometimes schools do run out of funds. That's why we do the hold back um for um unexpected uh professional development opportunities. So, and then Perkins. Oh, I love Perkins. Um

078Perkins is our CTE grant. Um we actually got our allocation letter this morning. I don't know if you saw that or not boss, but we get uh we got about $2,000 um more in our our allocation for this coming year is about $78,556.88 um is what we're getting for next year. Um we use those funds to uh upgrade our our equipment in our in our CTE programs. So, for example, um Michael Welling has asked for um upgraded computers for the AutoCAD program in the the drafting room. That's going to be uh probably somewhere around anywhere from $45 to $60,000. So, Perkins would be able to pay for for those funds. I I have to mention it because it's it's tied to CTE, the new legislation uh that came out this year. We are now lineing

079money for CTE. That's a new state statute. They didn't give us more money. No, but we now have to line item money for CTE. Um so, and I say that because I talked about the the $60,000 uh computer upgrade for one program. CTE at Evston High School will get approximately $100,000 that'll be line items into the EHS budget to support CTE programs. Some of that will be absorbed into student fees, which we're going to reduce the student fees, which is part of that legislation. And we don't want kids to um have barriers to being in CTE classes because of the fees associated with supplies and materials that you guys know are there's a lot of consumables in CTE classes. So that's that's what the fees have typically been for. Okay. So we combine So Matt's

080not here and and so this is a great time for me to talk about how much I love spending Matt's money. Um, so between title 6B, which is a special education um, grant, federal grant, and title 2A, we spend approximately uh, 3/4 of a million dollars a year in professional development for our staff. And that's a that's a significant amount of money. That's people coming into the district. That's our teachers leaving the district to go receive professional development other places. Um, so our investment in our people is is significant. Okay, the human capital side of this as you know uh for K5 I am over uh HR and we kind of as things come in from other departments we kind of tag team Doug and I with each of those departments depending maybe on who's

081available or maybe whose expertise they're seeking at that time and Doug is over the 612 uh we want to thank uh our department exists uh Christine Haydock is she is the kind of the primary. We appreciate all the work that Christine does. She does a a really nice job of helping to keep things keep us above board. Uh when people come in from anything from uh getting their fingerprints to wanting to find out how to become a substitute teacher to answering questions for employees about reertification, all of those things and more are are that that that Christine does. Um if you look at our employees certified we have 294 certified employees we have 300 support for a total of 594 employees largest employer in the county and uh we're quite proud of the work that

082we do there. When you look at average number of years this is very telling. You look at our certified staff you're 12.9 years. Um support staff is 8.1. And sometimes we think, you know, that's kind of a revolving door at times, but that's that's a pretty good track record for to have our support staff average at eight years in that administration. National average to contrast that against uh you know, that's a good question. I don't have that. I would venture to guess it's much lower. I can tell you what an average principal is about 3.2 years in their in their position. Average superintendent is 1.75. So when you look at where we are, uh, you're as you look at administration, that's 18.6 years cumulative. As you as you look at Did you say superintendents are

083typically 1 point something years? 1.75. Does that mean our superintendent is not smart enough to move on? Exactly. We're not making any comments about the boss. So all right, here we go. Uh, the McGrath training system. This is something we do every year for all staff and then we do for new staff on the alternating years. This really looks at Title 9. It's discrimination, bullying, intimidation. Mr. Williams and I are trained in the McGrath response system. It's uh it's a great system. It uh starting from the complaint all the way through the investigation process. And we've used it. We've used I'll just leave it at that. uh because sometimes it's more often than than maybe we would like but it's available and uh uh we try to train our principles and directors in that as

084well so that they have a really good understanding out of how to begin and work through those and we're always there to support them in those investigations. So that's the McGrath system. When you look at the succeed with truce speak it's something that we provided for our administrators and directors all our new principles as well. It's, as it says, a framework for excellent communication skills and productive reasoning. So, it's really trying to look at how do we uplift our staff? How do we communicate better? Uh, very systematic approach, making sure that we're we're always looking at the facts. We're always looking at the impact of things. We're looking at the context of what is going on and then really looking at how do we take that action step or really that kickoff. So, that's the

085McGrath system itself. Oh, you're doing great. job descriptions and compensation. So over the last uh two years uh we have written job descriptions for all 75 of our current positions uh and we are have a process in place to continue to do that. When we do that we seek input from the people who are in those positions so that it isn't just hey here's it's handed to you. you get that particular information from them and then we build those job descriptions from there uh from that uh through the work of again those of us at at the district office level and and Mr. Williams especially John put together a market analysis. It's an incredible analysis of where we are in our surrounding districts as well as across the state. So he he took uh the

086information from the WDE for the variety of positions that are available. It was all redacted but he had the amounts and was able to do that market analysis. In a nutshell that's basically what happened. Um we then look at the implementation this year of the support staff salary schedule that was approved last year the 2042 school year. And again the goal is for us to be at market and and that's what we're striving to do. So okay. All right. So obviously we want to thank several people. Sherry uh does a great job in in supporting our departments as well. Uh we we so part of the HRS model is that we collect quick data. We have indicators or what in business they call them KPIs, key performance indicators. Those are our our HRS indicators. So

087that's how we continue to monitor the health of of the organization. How monitor the health of each one of those indicators. So, um, we we really, um, it's our goal to create a culture of excellence in our schools, right? Whether that's kindergarten through 12th grade. And and what does that culture of excellence really mean? What does that mean for our students? What does that mean for our staff? What does that mean for us? And and so creating that culture, living that culture, um, is super important to us. and and we want to continue to work with with all of our folks um to realize that that goal. And as you look, we're really proud this year, those who were at the HRS conference, uh all of our secondary schools received their their GBC, level three.

088Uh Horizon will finish that uh this next fall. Uh all of our elementary schools received the level four certification for the uh standards reference reporting. you know, an important accomplishment and uh those who have been to that conference recognize the work that it takes to get to that particular level. So, we're really proud of the work that our leaders have done, the work that our teachers have done in building that process because it isn't the leader sitting in the office doing all of that. It's done schoolwide. It's done with our stakeholders from the parents to the students to the teachers to the leadership that's provided. Anything you want to add? Nope. We're good there. Moving forward, uh, again, we're looking at those ELA standards and this summer in June, first week of June, we we

089set those dates in the fall of the year so that people can put it on their calendar. Obviously, teachers aren't under contract at that time. We try to get representation from each grade level and each school to be at those particular meetings. uh generally we have 50 to 70 people who are there and and part of that process. We continue to align our prioritized standards to the math, science, fine arts and PE and health. Um and always getting better, trying to get better with those um update curriculum annually. This summer we have a variety of professional development opportunities from math to ELA, writing interventions, certified and instructional aids. And for the first time, we are proudly to announce uh visual arts training for our steam, opened up to all of our elementary teachers, and it'll

090be uh conducted by Robin Hustistake. And she's excited about it. And I'm excited. I can't wait. I'm not a great artist, but I'll sit down in that. And so we asked her to do is really look at the elements of art and then give them an opportunity to get their hands on and really start to understand that in a better way so that we can begin to lift that up. We're also Doug's going to do some work around utilizing AI, big topic in education right now. And then we do a lot with assessments. You know, in K or 612, um the state has has revised some of their priority standards, uh math, for example, uh PE, health, uh fine arts. So, our teachers are going to be working on making sure that we're aligned. We've

091got another year to do that, but we'll spend a little bit of time this summer and then this next school year uh putting that together. So um you go to this last slide um oh there's still more and as we continue to move on we have our human human capital which is the frontline implementation this next year we'll also be doing it's the um attendance and it's all computerized now as well as substitutes and so that'll be something that we'll be rolling out in the fall. The business office has been really instrumental in moving that that work forward. We have two schools who are piloting that. Uh Clark Elementary and DMS to see how that's going this spring to kind of work out some of the trouble spots and uh we talked about this afternoon

092uh seems to be going as well as we might expect at this point in time and then moving it to the larger staff with training in the fall. uh continued emphasis on professional development analyzing the effectiveness of our PLC's and the MTSS processes really meeting the needs of all kids in the core uh tier 2 and tier three interventions for those kids who need those and then work-based learning can our students with our secondary school our high schools Horizon and EHS really trying to get that opportunity for students to get out into the workplace and and experience what that's really like to to have a job in a particular field. uh oftentimes it helps them decide, yeah, that's something I really love and I want to continue or wow, that's not what I thought it

093was going to be. I'm going to change directions. And so giving that them that opportunity before they start paying for uh school, whether that's four-year college or a trade school, giving them some opportunities to experience real life uh work experiences, is is our goal to try to get as many of those kids um many kids as possible that experience. Okay. And a final shout out uh to Amy. We neglected to mention she's our CNI administrative assistant. Does an incredible job. And if you can only imagine all the things that you got to look at here other than HR, she's got her hand in almost every every one of those pies. Has done an incredible job with it. And I know our our principles really appreciate all they get from uh support that they get from

094her as well. And a shout out to Clark Elementary today. Today I had the privilege of being at Clark Elementary at 1:30 and they had Superintendent Danfelter on uh she was a live feed. I don't know what was going on with her live feed. Evidently, she must not have had really good internet, but the audio came through. Kimber and her school were recognized as one of two schools in the state of Wyoming that met the Wyoming Governor's Reading Challenge from last summer and then challenged the kids again today to do that. It was really awesome to watch a couple of those kids get up and talk about reading and and giving them the opportunity to kind of motivate some of their the other kids. 42 students from the school uh participated with an average of

0952,000 minutes per student in reading over the summer and uh so we're quite proud of of that. Had a great opportunity to interact with one of the uh people, Dr. Lad from the WDE who was here as well to congratulate Clark Elementary. So Ember and Clark Elementary, congratulations. So Mr. Ker is not here. He's not back there, is he? Okay. So Mr. Ker's not here. He wanted me to thank Kobe for doing such a great job representing Epson High School, not only as the student body president, but also representing uh the school um here with the board. uh want to appreciate uh share appreciation for you and and what you've done at at Evston High School. Okay. So, thank you for that. Um I also want to uh thank Stormmy Dosal for um her work

096um at uh Davis Middle School in Evston Middle School. Stormy's accepted a position um in another uh Una County School District. Um she's going to be the principal at Mountain View High School. I've known Stormmy a long time. I appreciate everything she's done. While a teacher at the high school, as a player for me in basketball, uh I just can't say enough uh about the great things that Stormy's done uh for us and for our school district. So, I want to make sure and thank her for I think she said she's been here 13 years or so. So, um really going to miss Stormy. I'm sad to see you, but congratulations. Thank you. Apparently, you weren't here when I had the discussion with Scott Eers and wearing purple. Just as a side note, don't wear

097your purple. Stormmy, I was the assistant principal. First administrative job, Mountain View High School, 5 years. It is a great place to be. In fact, when you get over there, look on the wall. You'll probably see me somewhere. And I wore purple for a long time. Still got purple. Any questions for us? I have one question. Yes. Um, so for the summer academy and the credit recovery, I'm just curious. 20 days doesn't seem like enough for a kid to recover a credit. Yeah, it's not the entire credit. No, that's a course that they've already taken and a course that they did not pass. And so that's that's the beauty of being now in a standardsbased teaching and learning environment. So that student may have demonstrated proficiency on several standards but not enough standards to actually

098get to where they could pass the class. And so it's a very it's a very targeted standardsbased approach where students they have okay in let's say it's algebra one here are the specific standards that you have not yet demonstrated proficiency on. They work with their teacher. They get a lot of one-on-one attention and they work on those particular standards until they've either demonstrated all of them or enough of them to be able to earn credit for that particular class. And if they haven't totally met that at the end of those 20 days, then they know here's what I have to continue. So they don't start at zero. Yeah. Correct. It's not like you're you're doing a whole class, right? I figured it was, you know, that they hadn't done something. But what what prevents a

099kid from during the school year just not I call it butdding off but um not applying themselves and doing the work and saying oh I can I can recover that credit in 20 days during there's no guarantee you're going to get it recovered in those 20 days and it's summer school who wants summer school I know but I have heard some kids say oh you know I've got I can go to summer school for 4 weeks and and get credit for that I wish I could say that that doesn't happen but I know it does and there's limited number of credits they can recover. Yeah. So if you think about so if a student if a student has and I can't remember what the the the percentage breakdown is. It used to be 55%. If

100they had below a 55% they could only take one class in summer school. So they were doing 5 hours of one class for 20 days. Okay. Okay. So they're looking at 100 hours. In a typical school year you're at 175. So they're they're almost doing a half a full semester of work in that 20 days or so. It's not they're coming in for an hour, right? They're there for the entire time working on that one class. If they were close in a couple, you can take two up to two. Okay. If you were based on Right. Yeah. If you were between a 55 and a 70, then you might be able to work on two different classes. Okay, that makes sense. Good question. Thank you. Um yeah, thank you Dr. angles for your work on

101getting the visual arts uh professionals out training. This very welcome. Thank you for lifting that up and the conversations that we've had. We did also contact the art education university. Uh I mean they have some really great things but like all really great things uh it's a little spendy but uh something that we can look at as we as we strive to move forward with some professional development and other things. Well, yeah, it's great Robin Hood volunteered or or accepted the assignment to to offer this training. Yeah. With enthusiasm. So, I was really grateful for that. Definitely. And and I'm really excited too to hear about more work-based learning opportunities and expanding those programs. Um, I think, yeah, we've seen from Horizon's programs how valuable it is to get the kids out in the community

102and even more so to We have some great people even very close by that have taken on students and done a fantastic job with them. So, my question is on that last slide, analyze the effectiveness of our PLC's. What exactly does that look like? How do we how do we do that? So, our principles do that on a regular basis. They attend those PLC's. They look to see some of the basic things. Do they have an agenda? Are they looking at data? Is data uh utilized to uh to then make decisions for kids and their learning? Uh shared planning and lesson planning. Really, it's answering those four questions. And so they're making that determination of what what do kids need to know and be able to do. They're really looking at how they're going to

103assess whether they met that. They're then going to look at what happens if we don't. And they have those conversations. Okay, those kids didn't meet it. Now, what do we do with those kids? And then what do we do with the kids who did meet that? So, the principles spend a lot of time really looking in those meetings and looking at those agendas as well. We're talking about are there things that we can do to to relift some of those important things with PLC's this next coming year? Mhm. And is there a feedback loop where you know for suggestions from teachers of I'd rather focus on this section or or I want more support in this area or I want more cross collaboration between these schools. So yeah, I mean that's that's always a possibility.

104So for example um our music teachers uh 612 had an opportunity to spend a day with a trainer and they came to our our principles and said hey and our late star Mondays we have at least one Monday a month where we actually meet 6 through 12 music and so our principles have built that into the schedule for them to do so. And then you know one thing I've noticed from working in organizations is it's very easy to add things to that we want to do and accomplish and very rarely do we ever take away. So what do we have any mechanisms built in on reducing burdens on on teachers in terms of like here's here you know here's all the all the things we want you to measure or look at or do. Do

105we ever do we ever take things away? That's a really great question and really the the things that we that we look at are things that have been identified as needs uh based upon the programs that we have. So actually they're supporting again not supplanting. So um for example the handwriting piece is something that you integrate and build in. It's going to take 10 to 15 minutes uh to do that and to build that in. Uh but it's going to enhance what they're doing already and and building on that. And the hope is that it's going to be a benefit. But we actually look at our framework which is the high reliability schools framework and the things that we build in actually are aligned with without really looking at our guaranteed and viable curriculum and

106trying to make sure that we're meeting the needs. The hard thing is that the state then says, "Okay, now we're redoing standards. Now you get to do this and trying to analyze those and build that in," which are things that are outside of our control. But I can't think of too many things that we have said, "All right, this year we're now going to do something different and we're going to implement this." I hope that answers your question. Yeah. Do we do we ever is there a graduation point from from high reliability or Monzano? You're continually reertified. Yeah. And and so so the answer to that is no because the state requires it state statute that we are engaged in continuous school improvement. Our framework to do that is high reliability schools. And the reason

107that we chose that was that it's high reliability schools, meaning that schools get to determine what it is they're going to do to meet these specific indicators. Right? So, um, what it does and and I had a slide in there and I took it out. Um, but there's the way school improvement efforts are typically done is there's a whole bunch of different arrows pointing in all sorts of different directions, right? Oh, we're going to do this. Actually have a slide that says, "Ooh, shiny." Because that's what we sometimes do. Oh, that looks great. That looks great. Let's try this. Let's try that. All that HRS does is says these are the the indicators of effective schools over 50 plus years of research. How each school goes about meeting those is up to that individual school,

108their staff, their guiding coalitions. We don't dictate how each school meets those indicators. We provide the banks of the river. The banks of the river are we have to engage in continuous school improvement. HRS is the framework that we use to do that. How you do that, how you meet those indicators at your respective schools is up to you as a school because each school has different needs. EMS and DMS have different student populations. Clark and me maybe different populations, right? So we at the district level don't dictate what your professional development, what your school improvement efforts need to be. They just have to be aligned within this specific framework. Great. Any more qu any other questions? No. That was a good question. Thank you. I'm glad that you asked that because it's something that

109we're very cognizant of uh having lived in other systems where all of a sudden it's like the flavor of the month and hey we're going to do something new now and we've really been cognizant of that and tried to tried to hold that down. We used to do that with the flavor. Exactly right. That's the oo shiny thing. Yeah. Yeah. But thank you. Other questions? um quick overview of and maybe comments on how we did with our white top testing uh compared to the rest of the state. Uh white top 10 testing went well. We always have some areas that uh are really high, some areas that may may not be where we wanted them to be, but overall on the average across uh as I looked at them uh we are above state uh

110in you'll get you'll get the full report in almost every area. It just closed on Friday. the new data that we can actually use to compare us against the state just became available on Monday and and so I haven't honestly had a chance to to do I know where we are except for seventh grade ELA and 9th grade ELA because they have the writing piece and that we won't get that until for another couple of months. Okay. So those that don't have writing, I know where we are, but I don't I haven't looked at where we are compared to the state. And so we're I think we feel pretty good talking with the principles and spending time. I think we feel pretty good about about how our kids did. Yeah. There's some areas that made

111incredible. And there's some we need to work on. Yeah. True. No, I know. And it's going to be like that, right? Just Yeah. Uh thank you again for your time. I know that uh there's a lot of information all at one time, but u I bet on the under. So I know I'm trying to drag around. And you're not going to win anything. I'm only halfway through the agenda. Yeah, but I control the rest. Thank you. Thank you. All right. We'll now move on to our discussion items. Mr. Thomas. Uh, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, will for how many years? That's what you get for pushing me. That's right. That's why superintendents only last 1.7 years. Chair Peterson, members of the board. Uh, we've been um working aggressively on the budget. It is uh an interesting

112task. I John makes it look easy. It's not as easy as as he makes it, but uh we spent time today and reviewed every employee and where they're placed and making sure the openings that we have um are accurately accounted for. Uh budgeting and education makes no sense. You couldn't run a business the way we have to budget schools. So, we budget on guesses and then we find out after the budget is approved how well we guessed. So, we are conservative. There's no doubt. Um and that's I think what we're reflective of the community and reflective of what we have to be. Um so just a couple things about the budget where we are. Um John will present a budget message to you once we finish negotiations. Um because that's a big part of the

113budget message and how all that goes together. Um there is a copy of where he's at at this point if you want to read through that as as interesting reading for the night. John does a great job with that budget message. Just a couple things that are new that I would like to point out. We did get our renewal from Etna. Um I don't know if it's bad news or good news. I guess it's always bad news if you get an increase. Um this is where we are. Kind of an interesting We received an 11% increase. Right now we have a 98% claims to premiums ratio, which is really a good 14% above where we need to be. uh for the last 12 months we've averaged 97% uh claims to premium ratio which is not

114good. Um I guess if you try to be positive with that it means that our insurance is helping people. Um and the claims have been high. Uh an 11% increase represents this. Um our current monthly total amount is $678,000 a month that that we pay for insurance. uh an increase is $753,000 a month. That's a total payment for health insurance of 9 million442,588. Um that is split roughly 837 83% 17% with our employees. That's changed over the years. Um we have averaged a 9% renewal rate for the last 12 years. The interesting thing about that that represents three different insurance companies. So the trend has been um pretty steady. Uh and again that's one of the major reasons why we sued the state is that is not sustainable and it is extremely frustrating when you

115look at those costs. Um what that represents is if you just kind of ballpark it uh it's negotiated that the district picks up 50% and the employees pick up 50%. So that's roughly uh 300 to 400,000 that the district has to pick up and 300 400,000 that the employees have to pick up either through premium increases or benefit changes. Um, Etna did offer us four benefit changes that equal just under I think right at 11 12%. We can reduce it two and a half% I think from 11 to 8.5 if we take those benefit changes. If you look historically we've had 35 benefit changes in the last 12 years. Um, not all those years have we increased premiums. one of those years we received a reduction but overall um that is how we've been able

116to keep our insurance costs even somewhat manageable is through benefit changes and that 50/50 split. So uh that is uh I I guess if you look at where we are just based on the numbers trend is between national trend is between 10 and 14% nationally. When you look at our cost to premium ratio that puts us in 14 to 16% above that 80% target. Um our rate came in at 25%. Um Mr. Hoffman was able to negotiate of course um down to 14%. We used knowledge that we obtained from a consultant that there was rebates given to Etna which of course they wouldn't have told us about of roughly $300,000. That knowledge brought it down to 11%. Um what we requested is a renewal of the current program and a renewal of a of a

117fully self-funded program. uh we haven't received that yet. When we get that, we'll use that to study what it means to go self-funded starting in uh September next year uh with a committee um hopefully similar committee to what we have now in terms of representatives. So because there's some education involved in all that with those facilitators, but that's what we'll do. Um, part of the negotiations is really looking at that $700,000 increase to the district's budget because as we talked last month, we roughly received $1.6 million in new money. If you take 15% for operation, that's $1.3 million available for increases. And we just got a bill for $700,000. So, uh, I can promise you we'll be creative and if we air, we'll heir on the side of our employees. So, that's we'll talk about

118negotiations a little bit later, but that's what uh our goal will be. So, any questions about that part of the budget? That's a big part of our budget. 9 million out of a 42 $52 million budget is significant. So, we had to wait for that. The other thing that you have a copy of is proposed increases on our food service. And if you look at them, you'll see that their increases are really low. They're not significant. Um needed, yes. Uh but I think very reasonable. I appreciate the work that Sheila's done with uh food service. Um you guys we we've talked about this and another reason why we sued the state is we do have to um make a transfer to food service annually and Sheila has done some things this year with her budget

119to reduce that transfer um she cut some staff which is the number one driver of any budget um which we appreciate and then one way is to look at mail prices and to keep it reasonable increase. So that will be a part of the budget approval in July is to approve those new numbers. So we'll give you a month to look at it. We again we have another budget review next month if you have questions about those rates. We'll know more in terms of how it all impacts the budget with those new dollar figures. Um so I've gone over the three things. The budget message is there incomplete because we haven't had negotiations yet. Uh John, you think Friday they'll get the budget message? Next Monday, where you at? Okay. And so you'll be able

120to go through that. It's an interesting thing. It's required of us, but it's not approved by the board. So it's a narrative on how we're preparing the budget, which is approved two months later. Yeah. But anyway, crazy. So any questions about the budget update? No. Okay. Next item is meet and confer. Um that is tomorrow at 5:30. We have a a dinner with EA and then six we began the meet and confer process. Um uh Trusty Arch has volunteered. I'd love to get one more. We can have up to four. It's really at your John. You would like to do that? 6 tomorrow. Yep. 5:30. Come for dinner. You can be there at 600. Right. Right here. I'll be here. Anyone else? Yes. Maybe. Okay. I've got to check my schedule. Okay. Okay. Like I

121said, if two come, we'll have to turn one of you away, but if another one wants to come, we're good. Okay. Um it's I've always appreciated uh how we've done meet and confer and and I do think we put the needs of our employees first. So, uh that's exciting. That's all I have for meet and confer unless you guys have some questions about the process. Again, what we've kind of agreed is those representatives and the district's representatives negotiate in good faith. You are the representatives to the board. So, if it gets too out of whack, you can blame those two. Okay, that's all I had with that. Okay, next thing. Is it assembly? Is that how you say that? Assembly. Transition from board docs. Uh, we're going to keep this really short and sweet. Jeremy,

122preface it. Mr. D, chairman Peterson, members of the board. Um, many of you know you use Board Docs every day. We've been using Boardocks now for 18 years. They made a transition and sold. Um, with that acquisition, there's been some changes that have happened. Um, Sher and I spent some time visiting with some other districts who did the transition and it wasn't pleasant news. At the same time, um, we reached out to the, um, Wyoming School Boards Association to kind of see where where they were moving. They couldn't tell us at that time, but they have now made the announcement that they are transitioning from ordocs, which is Diligent to Assembly, which was a company that we had looked at. Um, after looking at it, talking briefly with Superintendent Thomas, we feel that this would

123be a great transition, um, for us at this time to make that transition assembly. It's going to look a little bit different for you as as board members. Um, but we will we'll go through that process so that you feel comfortable with it. In essence, it'll do the same thing that Board Ducks is doing with some more features um, kind of part of that package. Um, so that's kind of the 60,000 ft view. Um, I know there's some more information that's presented in your board packet with that. I guess my question to you is, do you have questions about this transition or or the the change? Jiren, if I may, there's two things that I think are vital that we're able to do with assembly that we could that we need to do. One is

124to maintain all the records of all the meetings in the past. That is a really neat tool. So, that's part of this process. that'll all be put into their documents and we'll have uh an archive of our past meetings. Um and the second part is the ability for us in terms of budget, not budget, uh policy development. There's a simple, not a simple, there's a tool in there that allow Jeff and I to communicate uh probably quicker through that transition and avoid some of the issues that doing that with two different individuals creates. and also you guys have access to that process too. So there's a ton of features but those two I think are the most critical that we needed to find in a new system. It does cost more money. Surprise surprise. Um

125but uh I just there's no other there's no other options but to spend more money even if we went with the other program. This just seems to be a better program. Um and supported by the state too. We got a little cut in price because they're supporting it too. Not much building on that policy. The other nice thing with the U Wyoming moving into this any policies that Brian Farmer puts together, we will not have access through assembly to that. And so there won't be copy paste. What's that transition? We can actually just bring that right down. Superintendent Thomas um our attorney Mr. Phillips can then take that and begin a quicker assimilation with that which is really really nice. and access to not only everything that perhaps is going on in the state of

126Wyoming, but across the nation, anybody who's using Sim, you're able to look at those policies and compare them, um to the policy that you're trying to do, which can be really, really beneficial. So, do we know when we'd be live with that? So, um if approved tonight, uh Superintendent Thomas will sign that either today or tomorrow. um then begin the process um probably starting next week where they will start to build our assembly site and then it'll be a lot of training unfortunately um with Sherry and when she's comfortable we'll make that transition. So, in the meantime, we'll probably parallel both Assembly and Board Docs. Um, when um Sherry gives the thumbs up, we'll do um a training with you guys, probably have you guys come in um doing your executive session. We'll get you

127on to the new site, show you kind of how to transition, what that looks like, and then we could be ready to go live. One thing that I really like from the board side is right now when you open an attachment, it pulls it outside of board docs and brings it up on another. And sometimes you get lost and you got five or six attachments going on. Everything, all the attachments are within assembly. And so you're not leaving um assembly. Everything stays in which can be really really nice. So you're not like, "Oh, I was just on this attachment. Now where do I go back?" Everything stays within that. Other questions? If you do have any questions on that, please let us know. We think we're going to make this as smooth a transition as

128we possible. Thank you. Great. Thank you, Sher. Next item is a district climate survey. Just wanted tonight to let you know we are going to do that again. I think this is our seventh or eighth year to use a very similar survey. Really pretty straightforward. Um, and you guys see the results usually in July every year. Bottom line, I think the most important part is climate. How do you feel about uh uh the board? How you feel about the superintendent? How you feel about district uh assistance? And then how do you feel about the district in general? And it has an opportunity for them to provide us feedback. What's the district doing right and what's the district doing wrong? every year we've used that as an administrative team. It's also we bring it forward in

129our retreat and talk about the commonalities that we see. Um and so it's part of I think our school improvement process strategic plan. Just let you know we are going to do it again. Um the only thing that's disappointing is we don't get a much turnout as we'd like. It's typically 200 individuals out of 600. Have we ever looked at hiring an outside firm to do like a truly anonymous survey? We've done that before ago. Uh probably 2016 2017 when we had a parent group demand it. This is a result of that. Uh the feedback we got from that survey wasn't worth the money we spent on it. So this is truly anonymous. They don't have to leave an email address. There's no way to track who it is. Um they do indicate some demographics,

130support staff, certified staff, administration, which building um only because a building may have a specific need, but there's no way for me to track who provides. So it is truly anonymous. It doesn't matter who provides the survey, you're going to have individuals that believe that they're going to find out who and they just won't say anything. So that's unfortunate. I just It's simple. It's quick. I I just don't think that's something we want to spend money on. those that are that have issues, get on the survey and tell us. I think it's more silences acceptance than it is I'm just not going to say anything bad about the district. So, but we we've tried those. Um I would say in terms of staff staff fat staff satisfaction, they're just too cumbersome. They always try to

131include too much. So, I'm up to change, but like I said, it's nice to be able to compare one year to the next to the next to the next and see exactly the same results. So, well, like you said, it was a waste of money and we did that. How like how much money are we talking about? Uh, I think it was either 2500. I think it wasn't a lot, but we also went through EA one year and had WA not EA because EA wanted to provide the survey. So, we used the survey they had. It's roughly we get better results on our survey than we got from those surveys we paid for. We used one out of Utah State that I really liked as a principle, but we didn't see the participation. People thought

132it was too long. So, our 10 questions goes pretty quick. So, I I don't know if we thought there were climate issues great enough, maybe we need to go to something more professionally done. But uh our ability to compare what's happened over the last seven years I think is pretty valuable too. So kind of up to the board in that. But that's why I brought it forward today is we're going to do this again. Yeah, I we just did a survey of my work and uh the leadership team was tempted to try and figure out who said what things and so I think having that distance of this is administered by a separate agency. We just get the raw data um you know could could help build some of that trust. Yeah. Well, it is

133anonymous. I mean, like you said, we don't know who's submitting what. There's no way to track it. So, and we've never tried. I mean, there were a couple times I thought about it, but we've never tried because more than anything else, not because I'd be angry, it's because I'd really want to explain what we are doing that somehow we missed that individual. Not because there was any kind of thing punitive, but anyway. Yeah. So, some of those points that you wonder, man, we got a lot of people thinking this. I always provide in my opening statement to clarify those issues. At the beginning of the year, I get 30 minutes with the entire staff and that's where some of that stuff comes from. That's all I had with that. Ready for the next? Yep. Uh

134the next is uh some policy development. And this is going to be really quick. Uh there are some policies that we have to um get into. The number one is policy rule CKA. We have to begin the rule making process again with CKA because of the new law supersedes our present rule. So um Jeff and I will be working on a notice to modify rule CKA. What's out there now the buzz in the state is this is concerns most districts. They're concerned about their employees carrying weapons and they want to do something either to control that, manage that, prevent that. We've done this for 6 years now. We're not worried about that aspect. We're very worried that anyone that has a concealed carry permit can bring weapons into our schools and activities, but our modification

135of CKA will just to be to match the expectations of the law and to support our employees. What I'm talking about is if we have an employee that wants to concealed carry, we want to embrace that. We'll provide them the best training. We'll pay for their ammunition. We'll buy them a lock box. We'll make sure that local law enforcement works with them. Um because that's the biggest thing to me is law enforcement won't know who's carrying in your schools. But that's kind of what we want that I see the benefit of this. I've gone back and forth with that and I just think that's probably the most proactive way to do it. But again, you guys know the rule making process. We put a notice out there, 45day comment period. Then we have to have

136a hearing and then we have to listen to those who support it, those who are against it. Then the board has to respond to those in it'll take 6 months. That will give us time if we start in June with the notice to see what else is happening in the state because this has already changed. Um, I have a draft policy from Wyoming school boards that has changed because the way the rule was interpreted, the law was interpreted was too restrictive. Now it's more open. And I've also seen that there are things that we can do that originally they said we couldn't do. Um, so we'll kind of learn from others this time instead of being the one out front riding the horse in charge. So, um, it's amazing how many districts contacted me and

137said, "How did you do it?" And it's because they're afraid of their own employees carrying and who, which of their employees are carrying. Interesting situation. That was my question. I mean, can we because of the new law require to have our teachers or support staff or anybody disclose whether they're concealed carrying or not? I mean, can we have a teacher come into our school and has a concealed carry license and has a weapon on him? Do we have the right and authority to stop and question everybody that comes into our school? No. Yeah, that's No, but I think we have the right to say if you're going to carry as an employee, please inform us and we'll support you. Do they have to? But you can't. That's what I'm saying. You can't get 100%. That's

138why we have to change our rule CKA because right now if you want to carry you have to do these things. So we have to modify it for our own employees but for no. But again we've lived this. We know you're not going to get a rush of employees that decide to conceal care. No, I I I I get that. But what I'm saying is as we go down the road of of of redoing CKA, I mean, are we going to be in conflict with the new law? Right. That's that's what that's what we're trying to do is put it in. We are going to have I bet we have it'll be interesting to watch because of the opposition we had before and the support we had before. There's possibility that some of that may

139switch because there are individuals that are going to say we want nothing for your employees just let them carry. Well, we're going to go beyond that and uh there may be some that say no that needs to be more restrictive that in the past we're saying not at all. So it it'll be an interesting uh I was just thinking the people that opposed it originally might be supportive. Now the original statute that we used to adopt CKA is still there. Yeah. 213132. It uh authorizes us as a district to address how our employees, volunteers, so on and so forth, concealed carry. And frankly, some of the stuff we put in CKA because we were the guinea pigs. Y we we wouldn't want in that even now if it continued. we'd want to modify it. Um,

140some of the things were just too restrictive. The idea that you had to carry your weapon every day or you had to make that's something we don't need. Don't need. Yeah. So, those are changes that we'll see, but it'll start slow like I say with the notice that we're going to begin the process 45day comment period. So, we have roughly until September to before we really get into it. But, we'll look at draft policies throughout the state and I'm really kind of interested to see how it goes throughout the state. So when does that policy go into effect? July one. July 1. July one all of them. Right. Y the district doesn't do anything then where teachers can conceal care. Yeah. Without restriction. Yeah. And I think we'd be in violation of the current law

141with our policy. Okay. Next one. Let me see if I can find it. Um is an interesting one. Um, this is because of Senate File 62, SEA 53, Chapter 101 was approved. The title of the draft policy for Wyoming school boards is sex designation designated facilities. Um, the bottom line with this is um the bottom line is we have to identify our facilities as male or female only. any cohabitation like on a away trip has to be male and female only. In other words, what the law does is define exactly what we've done for years. It does um allow uh accommodations, which again we've done that forever. Um accommodations to the law. Typically, we have single-use restrooms. Would be in the office. If an individual doesn't want to uh be in a a locker room

142or restroom of their own gender at birth, they can use a single-use restroom. You'll see more and more of those restrooms throughout schools, but we don't have the ability. The other one, um, what's the other one? Virtual education. But this is stuff we've done all along. I I think the part I like is we can get past the issue of what do you do with someone who identifies as another gender and wants to compete on an athletic team or a sports team and is it a reasonable accommodation to give them their own room? No. No. Cuz there's no supervision in that room. So that helps us where we kind of got fuzzy a couple times. We were able to accommodate but now it's pretty straightforward. It's the law. Um interesting. I'm going to see if

143I can find a policy that doesn't have sex designated facilities, but that's what uh the policy on how many school boards came. So, we'll be working on that. First reading will be next month. Okay. So, if you guys come across any that are better than that, let me know. The next policy that will begin next month. I don't know if I have it here. Oh, this one really wasn't by statute, but just in preparation. Um, one of the things that we have the ability to do that we don't do is on days when schools are closed to go virtual. So if we have a snow day, we can go virtual that day and count that day as a day of school. So there's some preparation that we have to do to make sure that's happening.

144One of them is we have to put a policy in place. So we'll put a policy in place that will allow us to do that. The other thing is preparation from our schools on how to do that. But with Canvas, um, computers may take some prep work, but, uh, it's something that we would like to do. You guys realize that when we try to make up a snow day, it's probably the most ineffective learning experience ever. So, um, we do still have designated makeup days in our calendar, which would be ridiculous. They're Monday and Tuesday of after school is out. I don't know how many kids would even show up. Um there are some requirements that we have to fulfill but that's a policy we'll bring forward next month to your first reading. That's it.

145Next item. You feel it slipping day? It's slipping away. Next item. I think is going to win. Next item is uh EHS and Horizon graduation and diplomas. Uh, Horizon is Friday the 30th. Uh, 5:30. 5:30. 5:30. Yeah. Um, and uh, at what's that? At EMS this year. So 5:30 in EMS on Friday. Is there anyone that would like to come out and hand diplomas? I'd really encourage you to go if you've been to other graduations. They're great. Horizon is special. Yeah, I can do one. Okay. So, we'll we'll make sure we'll send you some reminders. Um, one, two is great, but you're all is welcome. It's really kind of a neat experience. And then the high school is Saturday the 31st. 10:00. Is that when it starts or that's when they need to be there?

14610 when it starts. Okay. You need to be there 9:30. 9:30. Yield again. Football field again. Yes, as I understand it. So, bring your Johns. We're running out of luck. Kobe's our resident expert. Yeah. So, if you want to give me a talk today. Are you speaking? Huh? Cool. Well, if they got questions, I got problems. So, well, you came prepared to share, so maybe you should share. What do you want to know? Graduation. What's been the last couple years? Outside. Outside. So again, two or three, four, just got to keep it under four, I think. So I would like Jenny, again, we'll remind you if you can't make it, that's okay. Um, but again, that's a neat experience. That's what this whole thing is about. Be here. I want to be here. Okay. Let

147us know if you're interested. Okay, that's all I had there. The last item we have is, and I hope I can find it. Oh, thank you. Is the Dunning scholarship. This is what it's done. Um John and um guidance department at the high school put this together. So, it's called the Marian Dunning Vocational Scholarship. Uh the board of trustees. It explains the process. Um this is for EHS and Horizon vocational students. if they're not a vocational student, it can be open to other students. So, I like what they did. I think it's this is information. It doesn't have to be approved by the board, but you guys wanted to know what that money would go to. So, that's great. Um, so it would go to vocational students. Yes, the vocational scholarship. Yeah. Okay. So, I

148do have a question on here and I'm I'm kind of slow. Um, so we would recommend giving $1,000 a year to two individuals. Would that be $1,000 for each individual or $500 to the individuals? A,000 each. Thousand each. Okay, that's good. I had the same question last time because the same verbiage was used and I didn't know either. Yeah. So, you know, they told me then it was going to be a thousand per. Okay. That's all I have with that. So, you better hope public comments goes a long time. Anybody got a 55minute talk to share? All right. How Thank you for the those be chosen and approved guidance department. There's guidance in the high school committee on recommendations from the vocational teachers. They'll there'll be an application process and they'll review those applications. That's

149probably on the committee. I think they should put a couple vocational teachers. That'd be a great idea. So I Yeah, on that end. But are we going to notify the kids within the classroom or the vocational side that this scholarship is available? They make a list of all those scholarships available. Okay. All right. Perfect. All right. We will now move on to public comments. Please state your name and you your address. Uh, chairman of the board, members of the board, my name is Kylie Ingresol. My address is 312 Marshall Avenue. Um, I am here today, really, I don't have 55 minutes, maybe five, but um, I'm here today as the city director of a new program that we're bringing to Evston called Lemonade Day. Um, I am a board member of Jumpstart, which is an

150entrepreneurship organization for adults who it's an educational program for adults who are starting their own business. It's a seven-week program. There's a pitch competition at the end. Um, and Jumpstart runs that. Under Jumpstart, we've decided that we needed to expand the offerings. And so, we looked at the national um, opportunities for children. And so Lemonade Day is a youth entrepreneurship program. It is um kind of what it sounds like, but it's a program that allows um we get a curriculum from a national program. It's four to six weeks um that they kind of do on their on their own with a mentor. Um and then they hold a lemonade day stand. So all of the um youth can hold their own lemonade day lemonade stand and um it's community supported and so we're bringing it

151to Evston for the first time this year August 9th, 2025. Um we have asked the school district and are so grateful for their support. They're going to send a flyer through um all of the elementary schools as the curriculum is for truly K through six, but there is an a middle school program as well. Um, and we just wanted you guys to be aware of it. And also, um, if you get questions or are wondering what it's about, uh, have some contact. So, um, it should be good. The curriculum teaches the kids to spend a third of what they earn, save a third of what they earn, and then donate a third of what they earn. So, hopefully that's what happens. Um, the organization itself does not take any of the proceeds from the stands

152that kids do. Um, but the kids get to keep all of the revenue. It is lemonade day happens in Larmy and Casper as well. Um, and the average stand earns about $300. Um, yeah, they can sell other things than lemonade, but it's just we're just starting. That's awesome. I'll take any questions. So, I guess the stands and locations are left up to them as part of the process of of the Yeah. Yes. location, location, location, location, location, location. So, they are um they part of they have to write a business plan and part of in the business plan they have to decide where they're going to locate. Um they have to ask businesses. There are some sponsors. So, that can be sweet spots. Um I should mention for sure uh state bank is our title

153sponsor this year. So, we really appreciate them um doing that. And um so there you know if you hear of kids asking businesses please encourage that they can let them be there. So any questions send them to my business. Sounds good. Yeah. Yeah. I will uh you're not the boommy still. Yeah. I'm the shop behind the pilot southern market pilot. Send somebody to me and I'll talk to you. I will make sure you're listed. The only problem is they might stop at the little building before your building instead of show up in front of the cannabis shop. I don't know nothing about that. Kylie, is there a local location sells? There is a local website. It's lemonade.org/pston and registration is actually currently open so you register. Thank you. Good to see you, Kylie. Long time

154no see. She used to work with Boseies. Yes. a long time. Fantastic job up there. So, good to see your smiling face. So, thank you. August 9th. Members of the board, can you hear me? My name is Tenny Schuler. Um, I live in Fort Bridger, but work here. I am in front of you tonight. Um, as the EA president, I wanted to voice I I'm sure you got a few emails. We asked we asked our teachers and staff to voice some of their stories regarding the insurance increases to. But I'm just here tonight to kind of add to those concerns. And I have no comments pointed towards any individuals, just Etna. And um some of the things that that are concerning to our teachers and our staff is that we've gotten great raises with the

155ECA over the last three years. It's 6,000 and I'm I'm just talking about certified staff right now, but a good chunk of that is being gobbled up by our insurance premium increases. Um based on our newest numbers right now, we're going to be asking a family to pay um $376 more per month than they were back in 2022 23. Um, with our raises, it really is an offset amount of they're making $132 more per month and that's that's the lowest end for a single with what their premium amount increases would be. Um, and the raises that we've gotten, it leaves them about $378 per month. That's substantial when we are getting money and we're trying to give it to our teachers and staff. So, I'm just here tonight because I know not all of you

156will be at meet and conferred, but we really do think that this is a incredibly concerning issue. It's just our insurance provider. Um, and so if you do get emails, it's because we want you to hear some of the stories and the personal impacts that that's causing. Um, I did get permission from one teacher to relay their story. They're a veteran teacher of 25 years. they had a spouse lose a job. They are incredibly concerned about being able to put money or put food on the table with what they have to do with the insurance. So, I just want you to all be mindful about it um and have a little bit more of a a reference point with how it's affecting people dayto-day. So, um that's all I had. If you have any questions,

157I'm happy to help. All right, any questions? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman Peterson. If I may, just a quick comment. What was described is why this board took the risk and sued the state. Um to have our employees come before the board with their concerns, they're coming to the wrong group. Where they need to go is to the legislature. The board through the administration have demonstrated over the last 12 years their commitment to the staff through raises when no money's been received. The insurance increases we have very little control. The only control we have is the 35 benefit changes we've made. I would ask those individuals that did email you, did they email our representatives? Did they email the representatives and the senators in our state and petition them for increases

158to salaries because we're underfunded? Um, none of us sat on our hands. I constantly emailed representatives from our state and met with representatives from our state and encouraged this board to sue the state. um that needs to continue and it just can't be a select few. It needs to be every teacher needs to voice their and every support staff need to voice their concern about what is being done in our state. I've already met with four legislators legislators about me about about recalibration. It is going to be ugly and my guess is we may have to sue the state again because of the positions they're taking. But our staff, they can express their concerns all they want to you, but where the work gets done is to our state legislators. That needs to happen. And

159our local legislators that aren't supporting these increases really needs to be called on the carpet. The voice of 600 employees is pretty powerful. The voice of three or four of us doesn't make the same impact. And so I don't know if everyone understands that the insurance that our employees pay for is the same insurance that I have. Those benefit changes I've had to make. So I understand exactly what they're going through and hopefully when they do see the packages that are offered in negotiations tomorrow, they'll realize where our commitment is. So just wanted to make that comment. Thank you. Great. Any other public comments at all? You state your name and address. How you doing? Good. How are you? Uh Casey Harden, uh 3684 Elmy Road 107. Uh I teach at the high school. Um

160first of all, I just want to back up Sunny for whatever she said. You guys got my email. Uh some of you wrote me back, so I appreciate it. Um, you got my email. I just wanted you to put a uh a face to the email. Um, pretty upset about it. And uh, I do believe I will, I guess, respectfully disagree and say I do believe I need to come in front of you guys and I have role model legislators. Great. And let them know I'm not from here. I'm not from I'm from Kentucky. I've only been out here about 12 years. Uh, so I don't know near as many people than I I do back in Kentucky. Um, but that doesn't mean I can't do that part. Okay. So, I just wanted to let

161you know my extreme disappointment and you guys got some of my I guess attachments to my email. Um, it just blows me away that somebody 20 miles or 30 miles from here in in the valley pay $7,500 a year less than what I pay. I just I I don't understand it. I just it's just flabbergast. Okay. So, just to let you know how disappointed I am. Okay. And uh you guys got my email. My wife told me to be civil. This is me being civil, you know, letting you guys know tasted. Uh, we'll be glad to talk to you guys anytime about your thoughts on it. Um, all I hear is hearsay. You know, this person thinks this, this person hears that. I don't really go by that other talk to you. Okay. So, um,

162good luck. Thanks, Casey. Thanks. Thank you. All right. Any other comments? Okay, we will now move on to our action items. So, we'll move on to action item A, personnel. I need a motion to accept the resignations as identified. Why not identified? As identified in the documents that we had received on school docs. Motion to approve the resignations. Second. Any discussion? No discussion. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Eyes have it. Motion carries. We will now go on to the contracts that were identified in the school docs. I need a motion to approve those said documents. Contracts. Sorry. I'll make that motion. I have a motion. Second. Second. I have a second. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Those contracts have been approved. Thank you. I need a motion

163to approve the contract for the assembly contract for moving on from uh board docks. Mr. Chairman, I'll make that motion to approve the assembly contract. Second. I have a motion. I have a second. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Eyes have it. Motion carries. Contract will be approved. We'll move on to action item C for the disciplinary actions that were discussed in the executive section sess session for the student as identified. So moved. I have a uh motion motion second. I have a second. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Eyes have it. Motion carries. That concludes all of our action items. We will now move on to the board round table. [Music] He lost big. Not even close. Chairman Peterson, I do have one thing I'd like

164to mention. Um, you guys all received a document from Wland School Boards about the recalibration professional judgment panels. What a neat opportunity. You just heard from our staff how frustrated they are. Um, basically Picas, who is leading the charge as a consultant for the state, wants to put school board members on um what does he call it? The professional judgment panel. Take information and pass it on to the legislature. So, I would encourage if you have the time to be a part of that. The dates are on the email that you received. Um, I think it's a big deal to be on those that judgment panel. Great. Yep. Can you uh tell me what the dates are again? Sure. Online sessions are Wednesday 5:21 9:00 a.m. Mountain time. Thursday 5:22 uh 3 p.m. Mountain time.

16562 3 p.m. Mountain time. Um Wednesday 6:4 9:00 a.m. Mountain time. In-person sessions will also be held on the following dates. Wednesday 5:28 in Cody. Um Thursday 5:29 in Gillette. Uh Tuesday 610 in Rock Springs. And Wednesday 6:11 in Cheyenne. So, do you have to attend all of them or a series or just one? That was kind of confusing. So, you need to get in touch as soon as possible to see if you would be interested in participating in this process. Time is of the essence. If interested, please sign up to participate here. There's actually a link if possible. Uh you do not need to participate in all the sessions. Choose the option that works best for your schedule. So, it looks like we can have multiple people on multiple days. Yeah. So, you'll be

166going to Gillette. Um, no. Cody and Gillette. Yeah. So, I just wanted to kind of put a pitch in for that. Any other comments? Yeah. I just I just have one. Um, we we talked about uh the uh bear with me a little bit here. Uh the climate survey uh Wyoming School Board Association provides that and I don't know if that is uh without a cost. Uh but I think it's one of the services they provide and I can find out if I I'll check into that. Yeah. Because they shouldn't charge us more. They're already charging us to be part of the organization. We already pay a fairly healthy and and so that should be something. It would be interesting if we could submit the questions but they submit the survey cuz then you avoid

167any confrontation that it's somehow I'm checking everybody. Y we'll do that. Yep. That's all I got. Um I'd like to uh kind of uh follow up with Doug just a little bit. Stormy, you're going to be missed. Trust me. I I think uh what's happened to the middle school levels over these past couple of years, you guys have done a phenomenal job. I think it's shows in the character of the kids. Uh my wife comes home and tells me that the referrals are about down to nothing now and I think there's a lot of respect for the administration that's that's in the schools down there. So, thank you so much and and you are going to be missed deeply. So, yeah. Well, and I think hats off to all the principles and everything that have

168uh achieved the great things they've had with the the levels that they've been able to get to. So, uh and I think that the the number of uh folks that we had attend in January. I went a couple years ago and there I think it was like 10 or 11 of us and this last year there were 30 plus. So, uh that's great and uh you know, hats off to you. Yep. Any other comments? I move that we adjourn, please. Some more comments. I got 35 minutes to go. Okay. No. Uh, I need a Well, I got a quick question for you. What? On my little list right here, they're asking us to go to another executive session. Is there a reason that that is on there? Uh, yeah. Probably a mistake. Okay. All right.

169And I'm just I didn't we need to It's actually It's supposed to be on there next month. Next month. Okay. All right. So, we don't need it. You're welcome to if you want to go. Okay. I I need a motion to adjurnn. I got a first. I got a second. Any more discussion, please? No. None. All in favor say I. I. Made the motion. Three times. And Brian second. Thank you. We have some some signatures.